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Islamabad will host the matches of cricket World Cup 2011 as the capital City of Pakistan will certainly have a cricket stadium of its own by then.

“The paperwork of acquiring the land for Islamabad Cricket Stadium on lease from CDA will be completed in a fortnight or so and work will start thereafter,” said the Director of Pakistan Cricket Board, former Test cricketer Salim Altaf, on Tuesday.

The PCB Director was chatting with reporters after inaugurating National Pepsi Inter-School Cricket Tournament at Diamond Cricket Ground here.

Present on the occasion was the President of Islamabad Cricket Association, Shakil Shaikh. Salim Altaf appreciated the assistance of ICA to PCB in the process of leasing the land from CDA on Garden Avenue, behind Pakistan Sports Complex and just opposite Pakistan Tennis Complex.

He said that India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh had been awarded the matches of World Cup 2011 with “proportional distribution” of 21, 14, 9 and 6 respectively though the venue of the final was yet to be decided.

“For our part, we will certainly hold a few matches in our capital city out of the 14 allocated to us”, salim said, mphasising that the Islamabad Cricket Stadium would emerge as “one of the best in the world”.

He said that National Pepsi Inter-School Cricket Tournament was yet another Initiative of the PCB, led by its Chairman Shaharyar M Khan, aimed at promotion of this game and developing it at grassroots level.

He said the District level Inter-School cricket competitions would be followed with Inter-Regional Schools Tournament.

The selected school players will then be Imparted camp training and sent abroad for competition against their overseas counterparts.

Source:The News